


Extremely necessary

by bellofthetolppl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Post-Season/Series 03, Season/Series 04 Speculation, doctor!clarke, hurt!bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 16:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9500891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellofthetolppl/pseuds/bellofthetolppl
Summary: Bellamy Blake gets sick from the radiation after being out in the black rain for too long while trying to save their people and Clarke is pissed off.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Just a short one-shot because I can't get over Bellamy Blake going out in the black rain in the season 4 trailer. Everything in Italic is a dream. Comments are much appreciated!

He wakes up from someone brushing away the hair from his forehead and when he opens his eyes it takes him a few seconds to focus the person lingering above him.

“Hey, sleepyhead” she greets him and he furrows his eyebrows as he tries to make sense of his surroundings. Looking around him and seeing all the other makeshift beds lined up next to each other as well as the dim fluorescent light coming from the lamps near the entrance, he realizes that he’s in the medbay and Clarke was currently pressing her small palm over his forehead. He grunts as he moves his head to the right and tries to shake her off. He shouldn’t be here.

“What happened?” he asks unable to recognize his own hoarse voice. His throat is dry and she picks up the glass of water from the metal table beside them, helping him take a few sips by raising his head from the pillow.

“What happened is you’ve been a stubborn idiot who collapsed this morning.” he closes his eyes for a minute, recalling the fact that he had slept only two hours after being out in the rain all night, trying to find survivors and bring them in ”This is the first time you’ve been lucid at all.” he doesn’t remember waking up throughout the day, but he recalls dreaming and when he looks down at his body and tries to make sense of why he feels so weak, he sees the dangerously red bubbles on his hands which could only be caused by radiation.

“I was out last night” he states and she nods when she sits next to him and takes his hand. He has no idea how she isn’t disgusted or afraid of him right now, he can’t imagine what his face must look like and he lifts his hand up driving it up and down his face only to feel a few burns on his right side before she pulls it away.

“You were” she smiles sadly at him, but he can see the dangerous light in her eyes. The light that screamed I am so angry _I would kill you if you weren’t already kind of dying_ ”Three times. You fought Kane, even though he forbid you from going out again.” he remembers it all now, how Kane was so mad at him, he tried to grab his shoulder and pull him back in, how he stood in his way and told him this is suicide, that the suit is not made to protect him from that much exposure, that its holes were fixed with duck tape _for god’s sake_. He remembered it. He remembered finding this little girl he picked up from the ground who was still breathing, he remembers his suit tearing up when he moved her small body into his arms. He remembers not giving a shit when he felt the rain on his skin.

“There was this girl” he says as his head falls back on the pillow, suddenly he feels so much weaker than when he woke up, Clarke’s face getting a little smudged which causes him to blink rapidly so he could see her better ”Is she-”

“They are all fine” she reassures him ”Everyone you brought in last night, over twenty people, they’re here” she looks around them and his gaze travels left to all the beds filled with people ”And we’re trying to save them.”

“Good” he mumbles exhausted and closes his eyes for a minute. 

It suddenly occurs to him how serious the situation is, how maybe they won’t be able to save everyone. Yes Abby’s treatment has mostly been working so far, but not on everyone, not on older people and not often on kids. Maybe it won’t work for him either, maybe this was the end for him as well. And strangely that thought didn’t bother him, it didn’t scare him as much as he wished it did, it didn’t terrified him as seeing that girl last night in the mud, the rain destroying her body while he was safe in his suit.

“How is it good that you are sick now, Bellamy?” she asks quietly and he opens his eyes to look at her, but he doesn’t want to talk to her about this, so being the smart ass he is, he tries to change the subject.

“How did the meeting with Roan go?” he asks instead ”Did he agree to taking us with him up north?”

“We’re not going to talk about Roan right now” she huffs annoyed and lets his hand go. He has succeeded in pissing her off and he wishes to say he doesn’t like seeing his best friend on edge, but riling her up has always been a part of their relationship.

“Why? Is something wrong?” he asks most genuinely because he is indeed concerned about that and what will happen to their people if they can’t travel up north and save themselves.

“Yes, Bellamy, something is very wrong!” she raises her voice and a few from the people laying in the cots around him turn to them, which however doesn’t stop her for even a second ”You went out there three goddamn times last night! You disobeyed your chancellor, you disobeyed me! We agreed that you will be going once out there and only when extremely necessary!”

“It was extremely necessary” he responds weakly ”People were dying.”

“And now you are dying with them too!” she yells before she can stop herself and he can see her regretting it right away. They stay like this for a while staring at each other before he finally gives her a weak smile and tries to pull the blanket up to his chin-he was freezing.

“It’s worth it” he whispers weakly when she feels regret for yelling at him and sits back down next to him, taking a wet cloth from the metal table next to the cot and pressing it to his forehead. She shakes her head stubbornly and sighs.

“You’ll be fine” she says and he knows she’s not saying it to him, she’s saying it so she can calm herself down, because as much as she wouldn’t admit it, she was shaking right now too, only with anger and fear and not because she’s been too exposed to radiation like he was ”My mom will fix you.” he nods, but he doesn’t believe her, moreover, he’s not sure he wants to.

“Go back to your work, Clarke” he mumbles when he closes his eyes and feels like he’s slipping away ”You have stuff to do.” she ignores him and he still feels her hand pressing the cloth to his forehead long after he he told her to go. It’s not like he didn’t expect her to pull a fight.

“You have to get better, okay?” she says when she finally pulls her hand away from his head and he opens up his eyes only to see a very blurred version of her. He can’t make out her eyes and maybe it’s for the better, he’s afraid of what he might see in them ”We need you. All of us. _I_ need you to live, Bellamy” he smiles at that, he’s heard those words such a long time ago but he doesn’t have the strength to tell her that, to go down a road he’s trying to forget even existed.

“You don’t” the words stumble out of his mouth when she’s about to leave because it seemed like he was drifting away again and as much as she hated it, she had to go check in with Raven and Monty, try to talk to Roan, she had to fix that so she could come here and try to help him. So when she hears him, she stops dead in her place and looks at him, his eyes are barely opened ”Octavia’s fine” he utters weakly and she’s sure he’s probably hallucinating ”She doesn’t need me to raise her anymore, she doesn’t need me at all” she hears the pain in his voice and it makes her shiver ”And the rest of you will be alright.” at that he closes his eyes and his head falls to left, soon after which he loses himself to sleep while she keeps standing there, staring at him stunned and unable to move.

He falls back to a cycle of dreaming and having nightmares and waking up every few hours, usually to Abby saying something to him or trying to give him water or to being alone, surrounded by nothing but other sick people yelling or begging for help somewhere around him. He barely stays awake for more than a few minutes and he can’t make sense out of anything, but the dreams, the dreams are as vivid as if he was right there right now-back on the ark, his sister under the floor, his mom alive.

_He goes back to that time when he was 11 years old and he started working for the first time because his mom could no longer bring enough food to the table for two kids. She hadn’t even warned him about it-he came home one day and said he wasn’t going back to school tomorrow, informing him that she found him a job at the cafeteria where he would move heavy boxes of food and clean away after people. He hadn’t protested, he knew that he would do anything for his sister so he didn’t question his mother’s decisions._

_It was fine for him, he never complained if he was tired or if the boxes were too heavy for his skinny self to carry. He never said a word to the people who didn’t watch where they were going and bumped into him while he was holding the dirty trays, cursing him for standing in their way. He never raised his voice against his boss who gave him the hardest or dirtiest work there was._

_He never said anything when he collapsed early one morning after feeling like hell for over a week. His mother noticed his pale tired face but she gave it to the fact that he was tired and he just had to get used to the hard work. She knew her boy was resilient, he could take it._

_And she still thought so when he started falling to the ground early one morning and she rushed to grab him before he could get hurt. He must’ve gotten the flu, but he would be fine or so she believed until she took him to the medbay even despite his refusal to do so. She held his small eleven-year-old self in her arms as she waited for the doctor and she realized for the first time that maybe she has forgotten that she still has two kids, not just one._

_It was Abby Griffin who took them in and even though she wasn’t her favorite person, because of her place in their society, she felt like they were treated like human beings and not just workers for the first time in a long while._

_“It’s not the flu” she states while she listens to Bellamy’s slowly rising chest, her eyebrows furrowed as she looks at Aurora ”He’s oxygen deprived.”_

_“What?” she asks surprised when she watches Griffin gently push her boy down on the cot._

_“You are from Factory right?” she tries to make sense of it ”There’s been a cut down of the oxygen in some of the areas there, which could explain this.”_

_“He works in the cafeteria” Aurora states and Abby nods, not showing in any way her disturbance over the fact that such a young boy was already working. It was what often happened in Factory. It was their rotten system that caused it. ”Will he be alright?”_

_“I’ll make sure of it, but he has to stay here for a few days” Aurora doesn’t argue with her, she waits for Abby to put the oxygen mask on his face and cover him up with a light blanket, while thinking over the fact that her actions is what got her son here ”Do you want to stay?”_

_“No, I have to go home and work” which meant “I couldn’t leave my other child hidden under the floor all night” . Abby nods and heads out giving her a minute with her son and Aurora waits till she approaches him. It takes her all the strength in the world not to cry for she has realized that she is sacrificing his life for Octavia’s, but that was not what ruined her-it was the fact that she would have to keep doing it, that she would do it, even tonight. She was ruining her son and he was taking it all, silently suffering without any trace of disobedience._

_“Hey” she takes his hand in hers and he opens his eyes, looking smaller to her than ever before, his light breathing evident now that the mask was on ”I have to go back to your sister, okay? But they’ll take good care of you here and I’ll come back tomorrow after work” he squeezes her hand and she sees the fear in his eyes. He doesn’t want to be alone, he’s scared._

_”Don’t be afraid” she tells him thinking how she has another frightened to death kid currently residing under the floor and the fact that she had to choose one of them ”You have to get better, Bellamy” she tells him, trying to sound strong ”I need you, your sister needs you. I can’t raise her without your help.” he stares at her but doesn’t say anything, she’s not sure he can, but she sees her words sink in and with that the acceptance in his eyes that makes her shiver ”So listen to the doctors and do as you’re told alright?” he nods, agreeing with the life she had mapped out for him. Her bony hand brushes the hair from his forehead as she leans down and kisses his cold forehead._

He wakes up to Abby Griffin fixing up his blanket, his t-shirt is wet with his sweat and she says something, that he can’t make out since his ears are ringing and his head hurts so much. He raises his hands to cover them and turns away from her, trying to block away the noise that completely confuses him until someone grabs his hands and pull them away from him.

“Hey, you’re fine” he hears her tired voice and this time he can make out more than just her blond hair and her fuzzy self, this time he sees her as she is, including her blue eyes which tell the story of a girl who hasn’t slept in over a day and carries the world on her shoulders ”It’s all good” she promises as she rolls him on his back and sends her mom away with one look, promising she’ll take care of him ”I brought you soup” she announces as she stands up and pushes a pillow under his back as she helps him sit up ”You have to eat.”

He doesn’t fight her, he doesn’t have the strength to, but he makes it clear that he’s strong enough to feed himself, even if his hand is shaking and she lets him win this small fight though, by the furrow of her brow, he guesses she disagrees with him.

“How long has it been since we last talked?” he asks while taking a break from lifting the spoon to his mouth. He’s not hungry at all, but he won’t make her worry more than she already is.

“A day. You’ve been in and out most the time, having nightmares.”

“Did I talk in my sleep?” he looks down, the bowl suddenly more interesting than anything else in the world.

“A little, but don’t worry, it made no sense whatsoever, so I don’t know any of your dirty secrets” he meets her eyes and appreciates her trying to lighten the mood ”I was wrong, Bell” she announces with a sigh after she takes the bowl away from him, seeing that he can’t keep going and helps him lay down again.

“What do you mean?” he asks confused.

“It’s true that we all need you” she swallows hard, it seems to be difficult for her to find her words ”That I need you, but...I don’t want you to live because of us. I want you to live _for yourself._ ” he stares at her completely stunned and it pains her to see this look in his eyes ”I feel like nobody ever told you this, but I am now. And I am not sure you even thought about it or if you did and felt like it’s not a good reason enough for you to stay, but it is. You’re worth it.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that maybe because he’s taken aback by her words or maybe because he’s not since he’s thought about that and yes she was right, he wouldn’t want to live for himself, not now for sure.

He stretches his hand to find hers and squeezes it hard.

“Thank you” he says genuinely. It’s been a long time since someone saw him as more than an addition to something else, as a person who lived just so others could go on and it felt good. It felt different.

“You’re welcome” he pulls her down on the bed next to him and she leans her head on his chest. She can’t see her, but he feels it-she’s smiling.


End file.
